Colorful mineral veins are seen on the wall of a mine at the Usolskiy Potash complex of the EuroChem Group, in the Perm region of Russia, on October, 23, 2018. Production of potash, found deep underground and used as a fertilizer, is booming in Russia, which is looking at foreign markets including China and Brazil to meet farmers' needs for sophisticated crop nutrients.
Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr / AP

Scenes From Underground

Caves and tunnels have always been part of human life. We’ve grown more adept at shaping these underground shelters and passages over the millennia, and today we dig for hundreds of reasons. We excavate to find both literal and cultural treasures, digging mines and unearthing archaeological discoveries. We use caverns for stable storage, for entertainment, and for effective shelter from natural and man-made disasters. And as the planet’s surface becomes more crowded and national borders are closed, tunnels provide pathways for vehicles and smugglers of every kind. Collected below are more recent subterranean scenes from around the world.

A woman walks in the Fonvizinskaya metro station in Moscow, Russia, on November 28, 2018.
Yuri Kadobnov / AFP / Getty

A colony of roughly 4,000 eastern bent-winged bats, also known as little Japanese horseshoe bats, roosts in Kochi, Japan. Thousands of bats seek sanctuary from the winter weather in a public walkway set into a mountainside in the city. Photos taken by the university researcher Kei Nomiyama in January 2016 show the bats hibernating in a man-made cave. For several years, the complete disappearance of the animals during the winter season baffled researchers, as environmentalists could not locate their winter hideout. After much research, this massive colony was found hiding in the mountain on Shikoku Island.
Kei Nomiyama / Barcroft Media via Getty

An unopened exit of the Caojiawan station on Chongqing Rail Transit Line 6 sits among tall grass on May 8, 2017, in Chongqing, China. Two of the metro station’s exits open onto undeveloped and vacant wasteland in the city.
VCG via Getty

A scuba diver measures the length of the Sac Actun underwater cave system as part of the Gran Acuifero Maya project near Tulum, in Quintana Roo state, Mexico, on January 24, 2014.
Herbert Mayrl / Gran Acuifero Maya Project / Reuters

Elon Musk, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Tesla, arrives in a modified Tesla Model X electric vehicle during an event for the Boring Company’s test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, on December 18, 2018. Musk unveiled his underground transportation tunnel, allowing reporters and invited guests to take some of the first rides in the revolutionary, albeit bumpy, subterranean tube—the tech entrepreneur’s answer to what he calls “soul-destroying traffic.”
Robyn Beck / AP

Colorful mineral veins are seen on the wall of a mine at the Usolskiy Potash complex of the EuroChem Group, in the Perm region of Russia, on October, 23, 2018. Production of potash, found deep underground and used as a fertilizer, is booming in Russia, which is looking at foreign markets including China and Brazil to meet farmers’ needs for sophisticated crop nutrients.
Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr / AP

Peter Weiss, the director of Comex’s space department, tests a pressurized suit identical to those used in space expeditions in the lava tunnel of Caverne Gendarme on October 12, 2018, in Saint-Philippe, Réunion.
Richard Bouhet / AFP / Getty